Dr John Douglas

My biography

I am a Managing Consultant in the Built Environment group at Frazer-Nash Consultancy. I hold a PhD in civil and environmental engineering from Imperial College London, following a BSc in mathematics (also from Imperial), as well as being a Chartered Mathematician and Scientist.

I have over twenty years’ experience of the assessment of external hazards, particularly seismic, for the nuclear industry, as well as considerable experience in earthquake engineering in various contexts. In the past two decades, I have played key roles in the assessment of the seismic hazard for many sites worldwide, including for various UK new-build and existing nuclear power plants, as well as undertaking independent peer reviews. The impact of this work has been to improve assurance for clients that seismic hazards are being correctly assessed. This assurance has knock-on benefits, particularly a potential reduction in costs of the design of the structure (due to lower uncertainties and faster acceptance of the results) and greater regulatory confidence in the assessed hazard.

In previous positions, at the University of Iceland, BRGM (French Geological Survey) and the University of Strathclyde, I led research developing innovative solutions for the assessment of hazard and risk. This research led to the publication of over 100 widely-cited articles in peer-reviewed journals. In 2011, I was awarded the quadrennial Young Researcher Prize by the French Association of Earthquake Engineering. My expertise led to my appointment as chair of the Scientific Committee of SIGMA-2, a multi-million-euro project to improve seismic hazard assessments for nuclear installations, and an invitation to co-author a Technical Document for the International Atomic Energy Agency.